1. Field
This application relates generally to conferencing and communications.
2. Related Art
Instant messaging sessions, instant messaging conferences, and data collaboration sessions involve a party (such as a group of people or an individual) communicating over a data and/or telephony network with one or more other parties. Instant messaging sessions can be managed by applications such as MSN Messenger™ and AOL Instant Messenger™ while collaboration sessions can be managed by technologies such as OpenScape™, LiveMeeting™, NetMeeting™ and WebEx™. Using such software, it may be possible to associate a particular party with one or more devices such as a cell phone or PDA. The associated device often offers alternate or supplementary communication capability (such as voice telephony) which may not be primary form of communication in the session. For instance, a data collaboration session using a PC may also designate a cell phone as an associated device for a given party.
However, though parties are associated in a logical sense with a device, there is often no functional interactivity with the associated device in the session. For instance, in cell phones, there is a PTT (Push-To-Talk) feature where the last number dialed will appear automatically such that pushing just the “Talk” button would attempt to reconnect you with that last dialed number. It would be useful to use the messaging or collaboration session to access and activate features such as PTT that may be available on associated devices. Such interactivity would make the session more feature-rich and user friendly.